Release: PS Vita 3.60 Homebrew Enabler HENkaku

The official site, the only place where you can get the hack for now, seems to be supporting the pressure very well. Few homebrews are actually available at this point, but people who managed to get in and install homebrews reported it works fine.

The main issue seems to be the confusion that HENkaku requires files in the .vpk format while historically homebrews for Rejuvenate were in the .velf format, meaning few homebrews actually work. I’ve personally tested HENkaku and can confirm the hack itself works, and, of course the first homebrew I tried was DoomVita (which worked, without sound). It’s worth noting my Vita crashed the first time I tried to install HENkaku, but it worked like a charm the second time (on that note it’s pretty exciting to see the HENkaku installer doing its job while the Vita keeps getting you notifications about the Live Area being updated 🙂 )

Of course, again, there are not that many homebrews/emulators working as of now but we should expect the numbers to dramatically increase from now on 🙂

As expected, people have lots of questions on how to install it and how it works, so try to leverage our community for help on how to install the hack, get homebrews to run, etc…, by asking questions in our dedicated HENkaku forum. This is also where I expect people will start sharing homebrews that work, etc…

Need more help with HENkaku?

We’ll do our best to answer the most frequent questions and issues as soon as possible, but please use the following resources as well for more details:

The official site should be the first place you visit for help. In particular check their usage page which has a troubleshooting section (reproduced below for convenience, in case their site goes down)

Troubleshooting

Error C1-6775-5 when launching molecularShell

You must run the HENkaku installer again. Follow the directions above.

The web browser shows grey “Please wait…” screen

This is normal. Just wait for it, eventually it should load the page and trigger the exploit.

The web browser crashes and an error report dialog appears BEFORE “Welcome to HENkaku” pops up

Press “OK” and try again. If the browser crashes more than three times in a row, you can quit the browser (Press the PS button and swipe the LiveArea page from the top right corner or hold the “O” or “X” button depending on your region). Then you can re-attempt installation.

The web browser crashes and an error report dialog appears AFTER “Welcome to HENkaku” pops up

Press “OK” and try again. If this happens more than three times in a row, you should reboot the system and try again.

The device freezes after trying to install

The installation has failed. Make sure you have a memory card inserted with at least 10MB of free space. Hold the power button for 15 seconds to manually power off the device and then press the power button again to restart the device. You can then attempt to install again.

The web browser automatically closed after installation

That is the expected behavior. HENkaku should now be installed. You can launch homebrew applications including molecularShell (see usage directions below).

The screen becomes black after the installation

Press the home/PS button and close the browser manually. Installation should be successful.

Please report success/failure in the comments below, and feel free to share homebrews that work in the /talk section!

That’s something that has been explained in great detail. As with Rejuvenate in the past, no banning ever occured; but that doesn’t mean the risk of being banned is totally eliminated. Install HENkaku at your own risk, but generally I believe you have nothing to worry about based on the community statistics.

Think about it though, why would sony ban you for hacking a console they pretty much stopped supporting especially considering that most people who own a vita also have a ps4 so that would make no sense for them to ban people this late in it’s lifecycle.

Well if they do decide to ban people it’s their loss in profits as people still buy stuff on ps4 via digital so it would be a stupid decision on their part especially since they have yet to ban a single person for hacking on the vita.

A rather stupid question, but does HENkaku replace any system OS files or does it *just* install the shell app? What I mean by that is, if I want to uninstall HENkaku, all I need to do is delete the shell app, right?

It does not replace any OS files. It’s a temporary homebrew enabler (HEN), so what it does is inject the exploit into running memory, and then install molecularShell if it’s not present. (you need molecularShell to serve as the FTP host for uploading VPKs).

So yes, if you want to uninstall HENkaku, all you have to do is reboot and remove the shell, along with any other VPKs you’ve installed.

Getting Rejuvenate to work in the first place was a major breakthrough on Yifanlu’s part, but HENkaku is so much nicer, so much more clever. A browser based exploit that allows for what amounts to a lightweight jailbreak, complete with Vita app bubbles? I can’t even begin to imagine how much polish it took Team molecule to put this all together. And that doesn’t even factor in the effort required to debug and test it without the infamous Vita scene leaking it well in advance.

It worked for me! Had to exit out of my browser and reset my Vita the first time but it installed correctly the second time. I couldn’t try any home brew as I had to go to work but it launched without any fuss. Can’t wait to see what home brew comes from this!

im on 3.20 too and im waiting for support on lower firmware. 3.20 i Have PKG installer, ARK, TNV, VHBL, PSM bubbble with working Rejuvenate And full write/read acess with the Email app on 3.60 We have VHBL and Henkaku (Whats like Rejuvenate is)

Wololo, I’ve spoken to Xperi and XYZ but I did not get info fro YiFan. But as far I know this is probably for sure a kernel exploit. HENkaku have same limitations as Rejuvenate was in reference to used CPU speed so it is limited to 444 mHz so it could be based on PSM platform as “Rejuvnate”. I know that they will not write and tell to normal user as me about technical ref. of exploit but they probably wait till $ony patches it. But I wanna know if you will talk with him ask him if this exploit will or have privileges to “touching” OS shell. I think that having full CPU speed control (as far i know vita have 1 gHz per core) and having more juice will be great for homebrew development. I think it will be good to know what this exploit can to do or where it will fail.

Keep at it. The exploit is a bit fussy and doesn’t inject correctly 100% of the time (probably due to ASLR) so you may have to reboot and do it several times to get it to take hold. The good news is that once it does work, you shouldn’t need to reboot your Vita again any time soon.

Got mine working after needing to reset once, works like a charm now. Thanks Yifan Lu Davee, Proxima and xyz for all your hard work coming up with this great exploit! Can’t wait to see what comes from this.

This is a temporary homebrew enabler (HEN), so what it does is inject the exploit into running memory. That means that as long as the Vita stays powered up (or sleeping), the exploit stays in memory. But once it’s rebooted you lose the exploit and need to HEN it again.

There’s next to no reason to ever reboot the Vita since it sleeps so well, so you should be able to HEN it and then go for months without a reboot.

I get an Error straight away then it goes to 100 % it says Error C2-12828-1 Internet Browser ,, Any Thoughts ?ideas ? I use to use that memory card on ps vita and ther was ark installed now its in my pstv could that couse the error? did on and off few times not worked.

No. The exploit has to be customized for each firmware version. While it’s possible to port the exploit to a lower firmware, it’s a massive amount of work, and there’s little benefit since the farther back you go, the fewer Vita retail games that work.

If you get C2-12828-1, rebuild the database and try again.. If you get the same error again just try it again, it works then… I installed on my Vita after rebuilding DB, on VitaTV a rebuild and two times installation required to complete molecular install..

What are you running atm? if you have any PSP or PS1 loaders installed and don’t want to lose them wait until they become available on 3.60, you can always manually update later even if 3.61 is released.

all i have is the ps exploit game (gladiator begins) since i just wanted the psp hack to play final fantasy Crisis Core (and since i had the exploit tried other psp games but none are important, just crisis core) can i connect to internet being on 3.60 while the firmware is for example 3.70?

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